Tower of Jade

(Plus some information on what Toshiba processes can be stopped.)

Everything on this page worked for me. You follow these guidelines
at your own risk. If something happens, you have my sympathies but you're
on your own and can't sue me or anything like that.

In February, 2006 I ordered a custom-built Toshiba Tecra M4 TabletPC.
I purchased a machine with a 2GHz processor, Bluetooth support, wireless
ethernet, a big hard drive, and a 128MB NVidia video card. The machine
came with 128MB of RAM, and I upgraded this to 2GB with SODIMMS from Crucial.
(Toshiba wanted an insane amount of money to do this upgrade. Their 1GB
upgrade was easily twice as much as both the 1GB DIMMS I ordered from Crucial.)
There were a few false starts with the machine, but overall it's a decent
laptop. The one big issue that really bothered me was this: After putting
the machine into Hibernate mode several times, the Hibernate option would disappear.

So I put up with this annoyance for a while, thinking it was unique
to my laptop and the Toshiba Power Saver applet which came with the machine.
In September 2007, I decided enough was enough and really looked into the
problem. It turns our that for me there was a very simple solution, but
it was kind of tough to find, so I decided to put everything I found here
for others to use.

After doing some tracking, it turns out that my system would hibernate
three to five (3-5) times before having a problem, but there was no way
to predict what would cause it to stop showing the Hibernate option. I thought the problem was the Toshiba Power Saver application installed
at the factory, so I removed it. This didn't solve anything, which makes
sense because all the Toshiba applet does is hook into the Windows Power
subsystem.

Now that I knew it had to be a problem with Windows XP Tablet
PC edition, I went back to Google and did some more searching. There were
several pages with possible causes, including a very specific issue at
Microsoft's Support Site1 and a comment about VGA drivers at TabletPC Questions2. None of the issues I found exactly matched what I had, but I downloaded the
fixes, just in case. One web site made a comment in passing that the Windows Terminal Service caused problems with laptops and hibernation.

Rather than apply a fix from Microsoft that may or may not fix
the problem, I decided to do the easiest thing first. Shutting off the Terminal Services service would be easy, and would not affect any of the Windows Services I use
on a daily basis3. I'm happy to report that turning off the Terminal Services service did solve my laptop's problem with the disappearing Hibernate option. Actually, it fixed the problem for about two days, then cropped up again. See the October 5 update for more information.
I don't know that it will work for you, so be warned.

Disabling the Terminal Services Windows Service

Right click on My Computer.

Select Manage from
the pop-up menu.

Double click Services and Applications.

Double click Services.

Double click Terminal Services from
the list of Windows Services.

Stop the service by pressing the Stop button.

Make sure the service will not start up automatically by
selecting Disabled from the Startup type: drop down list.

Press the OK button.

Close the Computer Management window.

I restarted my laptop and the Hibernate function
remained. In fact as I write this the Hibernate option has been available every time I've needed it in the past four days. Previously
I was lucky to get two days of hibernation.

Service supported by TS: These
two services rely on Terminal Services: Fast User Switching Compatibility and Infrared Monitor. If you use either of those, you should either find another solution or change
the Startup type to Automatic so your system will activate the needed services at the appropriate time. Just
remember to turn off Terminal Services when you're done.

Process RAM use:
It doesn't sound like much, but each of the processes use CPU and RAM
that I would rather dedicate to Dreamweaver and Photoshop. 15 * 3 = 45MB
of RAM. And keeping the count at 3MB is being generous. Most of these
processes used closer to 7MB.

Stopping the Toshiba Processes

After solving the disappearing Hibernate option, I turned my attention
to the plethora of Toshiba processes that were running on the laptop. Surely
they all couldn't be needed. My count showed at least fifteen of the things,
taking up at least 3MB of RAM each! This was crazy!4 So I did a little research and found Jonathan Hardwick's site which had some information about startup processes on a Tosiba M400. It's not exactly the same model, but it looked like there were a lot of similar
processes. So I experimented with the processes listed and made the discoveries
in the following table. (Some of these entries are directly copied from
Mr. Hardwick's site.)

Don't stop this. It's important for the Toshiba
Function keys on the function key row (F1-F12).

APntEx.exe

Touchpad driver (from Alps)

Actually spawned by APoint.exe. See APoint.exe
below for more information.

APoint.exe

And another touchpad driver (from Alps)

When not running, the laptop will accept mouse
input from both the touchpad and the eraserhead on the keyboard.
If you run APoint.exe, it will read the setup options from the Dual Pointing Device tab of the Mouse Control Panel. After running the file I have been able to end both the APoint.exe and ApntEx.exe
processes and keep the Dual Pointing Device configuration I want (all eraserhead, no touchpad).

I'm currently working on a program to run these when the laptop starts, then
killing their processes to free the 8MB of RAM they use.

CrossMenu.exe

Toshiba CrossMenu Main

Basically a tool to access frequently used programs
and settings while laptop is in Tablet Mode. Press and hold the little
joystick on the display to see these options. Allows you to switch
tasks, mute system, access settings (power, network, rotation utilities,
Tablet & Pen settings, etc.), start applications, and switch windows. can be stopped.

TAcelMgr.exe

Toshiba Acceleration manager

This is the software that provides access to the onboard
accelerometer. Needed by other programs like the hard drive park and
Acceleration Shaker utility.

TEDTray.exe

Toshiba Dual Pointing Utility

Puts an icon in the system tray to turn the Tablet
buttons on and off. Since it takes up 3MB of RAM, I disable it and
had no problems.

ThpSrv.exe

Parks your hard disk if you knock the laptop

Sudden blows to the laptop can cause the hard drive
heads to skip across the platters. This program is designed to freeze
the heads in place if the laptop is struck or dropped.

TMESRV31.exe

Toshiba MobileExtension3 Service

From what I can gather, this provides docking station
support for the laptop. It appears to be the main service that all
the other Toshiba MobileExtension programs (TME*) need in order to
function. Perhaps provides common functions?

TMETEMnu.exe

Toshiba MobileExtension, spawned by TMESRV31

Toshiba MobileExtension3 Menu (mnu)?

TSkrMain.exe

Acceleration "shaker" utility

Toshiba Acceleration Shaker allows you to configure
the laptop to start a program or take some action when you slap the
side of the computer. This seems pretty stupid to me. I spent over
$2000 for this device, now I'm going to hit it? I don't think so.

TFNF5.exe

Switch laptop video output using Fn-F5

I was able to turn this off without any problem. Apparently
the keyboard shortcut is supported by 00THotkey.exe

TRot.exe

Match screen orientation to rotation of tablet screen

When you move from one screen orientation to another,
this will automatically change the screen based on your preferences.

TFncKy.exe

TFncKy

Something to do with hotkeys? Haven't disabled it yet.
Found in C:\Program Files\Toshiba\TOSHIBA Controls

TPSMain.exe

Toshiba Power Saver applet

On my Tecra, starts the battery monitor, TPSBattM.exe.

TPSBattM.exe

Spawned by TPSMain, probably battery-specific

Takes up 3MB RAM, but no idea what it's used for.

TMERzCtl.exe

Toshiba Mobile Extension3

Toshiba MobileExtension3. Possibly the control (ctl)
interface?

tmesbs32.exe

"tmesbs32.exe"

Hot swap support for Slim Select bay(?). May need the
Toshiba Mobile Extensions to function correctly. May be started by
the TME3 process.

From Process Library tmesbs32.exe is a process associated with the Toshiba laptops Mobile Extension
Slim Select Bay Service. It is a part of the software for the CD/DVD
writer.

CFSvcs.exe

Toshiba ConfigFree application

Something to do with Toshiba's ConfigFree application
family. ConfigFree is designed to make it easier to set up and troubleshoot
network connections, whether wireless, wired, or over a modem.

Something to do with my Intel Wireless Ethernet Card.
Something to do with Zero Configuration Networking. Properties page
lists it as: ZeroCfgSvc.
Before I started using the wireless ethernet card, I disabled this
service by following these steps:

Right click My Computer

Select Manage

In the window that comes up, select Services
and Applications

Select Services.
You'll get a really long list.

Find the service in the list named Wireless
Zero Configuration. Double click it to bring up the Properties menu.

About halfway down the page is a drop down select
list named Startup type. Select Disabled from this list.

Press the OK button.

Restart the PC.

Does this really make a difference? Well, on my PC it freed up about
22MB of RAM and the associated CPU time. You'll have to decide for
yourself if it's worth it.

EvtEng.exe

EvtEng Module
Found in C:\Program Files\Intel\Wireless\Bin

Something to do with my Intel Wireless Ethernet Card.

RegSrvc.exe

RegSrvc Module
Found in C:\Program Files\Intel\Wireless\Bin

Long article about this program at Ian
Griffiths website. Apparently it's a part of Intel's ProWireless system, which allows you to create
profiles, troubleshoot wireless connections, etc.
From the Help file: "The Intel PROSet/Wireless
Main Window allows you to:

View the current connection status (signal quality,
speed and current network name).

Scan for available wireless networks.

Manage profiles.

Auto-connect profiles to available networks
in a specific order defined in the Profile list.

Connect to infrastructure and ad hoc networks.

Configure adapter settings.

Troubleshoot wireless connection problems.

Of course, all this sounds like a duplication of functions
already in Windows and the Toshiba ConfigFree utility.

From Aaron Tiensivu's Blog: "Intel's wireless driver component - S24EvMon.exe leaks memory - version 9 and
version 10 of the 29xx/39xx wireless drivers
I don't know if I should call it a memory leak or a memory hog but
either way, wireless drivers shouldn't be using 512MB of ram just
for tracking events. No wonder performance suffers as the day progresses.
For now, I am just going to strip the driver components to the bare
minimum and see if S24EvMon.exe behaves better. "

nvsvc32.exe

NVidia support

Provides system and desktop level support to the NVIDIA
Display Driver. This is NOT the display driver itself. I've disabled it with no problem.

TPSODDCtl.exe

Found in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32

I found the program and looking at the icon it looks
like this is the program that supports the CD-ROM ejection keyboard
shortcut (Fn + TAB).

tfswctrl.exe

Found in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\dla and C:\Program
Files\Sonic\DLA\install

Something to do with my DVD-RW drive. I should probably
end it since I mostly use an extra battery in the SlimSelect Bay.

DVDRAMSV.exe

Found in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32
DVD-RAM Utility Helper Service

Something to do with my DVD-RW drive.

From Process Information: "dvdramsv.exe is a process associated with DVD-RAM Utility Helper Service from
Matsushita Electric Industrial."

RAMASST.exe

Found in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32
RAMASST

Something to do with my DVD-RW drive.

From Process Information: "ramasst.exe is a process that get installed together with common DVD drives.
It is used to disable the XP built-in CD burning functions. This
process should not be removed if you do not have a problem with your
CD/DVD burning applications."

SMAgent.exe

Found in C:\Program Files\Analog
Devices\SoundMAX
RAMASST

SoundMAX service agent component

ctfmon.exe

Text input panel controller

Windows program that controls the Text Input Panel.
Don't turn it off.

Something to do with my laptop's Software Modem. Can
probably kill it without issue since I'm not using the modem for anything.

Once I had a good idea what each program did, I used the Computer
Management console, the appropriate Control Panel, or otherwise modified the RUN registry entry to shut down the process. This saved me quite a bit of RAM as
well as reducing startup time.

Interestingly, after trying to reinstall the Toshiba Power Saver
application, I discovered that it didn't work. Apparently Toshiba used
a 16-bit version of the install utility to create the downloadable package
from their website. This results in a package that I can't get to install
on my laptop. Oh well. I'm sure there are other power management utilities
out there somewhere.

Toshiba Provided Programs and Utilities

Several of the utilties and programs provided by Toshiba were
useless to me for various reasons, so I removed them. This includes the Toshiba Assist application (a duplicate collection of Control Panels and program configuration
options that exist in the separate programs), and the Toshiba PC Diagnostic Tool, a watered down version of hardware testing programs. I already had better ones
available, so I wiped them from the drive.

This page was created on September 24, 2007.

September 25, 2007 Update

I discovered that there is a program called Toshiba
Application Installer on the System Recovery DVD's I made. It's on the second disk. This application
allows you to select individual programs from the original system load
to put onto the laptop. I tried to install the Toshiba Power Saver utility, but it didn't work. When I restarted the laptop, I received the same "Fatal Error" message box I've been getting all along. Frustrating, but I guess I'll deal
with it.

October 5, 2007
Update

Well, the problem didn't resolve itself. On September 30th, after
a long day of working with Photoshop, Seamonkey, and Microsoft Office the
system presented the same error as before. This time I applied the fix available from Microsoft and restarted. So far the problem has not returned.